Pages

Sunday, October 2, 2016

An Apple Tour

Tonight is a great story about a young man that not only spotted George and Ringo, but was able to take a private tour of Apple in February 1972. This must have happened a few times to lucky fans, because I own photographs of some female fans taking a tour of Apple in May 1972. Not offense to Mike, but I found his story a little difficult to read. I didn't want to mess with his writing style, so I didn't change the grammar and punctuation too much, just a little bit.

An Apple tour (part 2)

The Write Thing
Feb/March 1985

By Mike Sacchetti

After becoming friendly with Lindsay, one of the Apple
security guards, in the summer of 1971, I made sure to stay in touch with him
until my next trip to England in February 1972.
This time I traveled with a different
group of people. Just my two roommates
were really into the Beatles, the rest of the group was there for the tour of
England. We arrived on a Saturday
morning, and after the usual customs and trip to town and jet lag, we decided
to catch a nap before going out to see “the sights.” Our friend Jack, on the other hand was too
geared up and wanted to go right out. We
weren’t in bed in more than an hour when he came rushing back in all excited
and telling us to get up – George and Ringo were expected at Apple in a few
hours. Feelings half in the bag, Billy
and I decided to go with Jack and warned him that this had better not be a
joke.

He explained that he had gone down to Apple and introduced
himself to Lindsay as a friend of mine, and said I’d be down in a little while.

Unfortunately, this was a cold and windy day, which made
waiting around not very desirable, but I guess it’s just the thought of seeing
one of the Beatles that gives you a kind of shot of extra endurance (witness
the Apple Scruffs). On the way to Apple,
I stopped and bought a gift for Lindsay.
He’s been very nice to me, writing back and forth for some 6-7 months
and made it seem like we were old friends.
When we finally got to Apple there must have been about ten people
already there also waiting around. My
first thought was, hell, we’ll never even get in the lobby. We attempted to speak to a few other fans,
one or two of them were ok, but those wonderful Scruffs were a bit rude and
certainly much too possessive.

I decided to go up to the door and knock to see if I might
get a quick hello in with Lindsay. To my
surprise when he came to the door he smiled and kept shaking my hand and asked
us to come in for a minute. I gave him
the gift and we chatted about a million things in 15 minutes. He said our friend Jack was right; George and
Ringo were due that afternoon. We said,
we’d go back out so he didn’t get in any kind of trouble. Before we left though he said that if we
weren’t too tired, after George and Ringo left about three or four in the
morning he would call us at our hotel and have us come back for a “special
treat.” We said “DEFINITELY. We thought to ourselves, “what in God’s name
could it be??”

Back outside we took some pictures of the building and hung
out. Finally about 4pm a white Mercedes
pulled up and a couple of the girls began to get excited. As the car drew closer you could see inside
and lo and behold, Mr. George Harrison was at the wheel. Poor George had to parallel park, and I must
say it was one of the funniest things we saw on the whole trip. He must have tried it eight to ten times
before he finally got it right. And even
though it was a bit comical, still I realized a serious case of nerves were
kicking in. For those of you who have
not actually seen one of them up close, let me tell you—your senses kind of get
confused for the first few minutes. Then
your mind starts to think, ‘what do I say?’

George's white Mercedes--this is the same car he would crash later the same month

When George finally got out of the car, he was only ten or
fifteen feet away so we could see him quite clearly. He was thinner than I thought he’d be, not as
tall either. He had an army fatigue
jacket on and jeans. From the other
side of the car another guy got out who turned out to be Klaus Voorman. They both walked over to the trunk and took
out a couple of guitars and proceeded to walk by us. I said a simple, “Hello George,” and he
replied “hello” back. He looked very
much like he did in “Bangla-Desh.”

Suddenly this guy who had been waiting around all day,
reached out and grabbed George by the arm.
He looked very alarmed and Klaus kind of grabbed the guy’s arm and gave
him a silly push. Something was said
that I couldn’t hear. George also spoke
a couple of words to the girls who were Scruffs and then dashed in.

Ringo interviewed at Apple in March 1972

Not more than 15 minutes later a green Jaguar pulled up, but
the driver didn’t look familiar. Then
from the passenger side, Ringo just bounced right out. He too looked pretty much like he did in
Bangla-Desh. He had a full length fur
coat on and his looked a bit greasy. He
did a quick pace right by everyone, not giving us time for pictures or hellos.

Afterwards we babbled on over what we saw and about what a
great accomplishment it was on our first day in England, seeing half of the
Beatles.

Back to our hotel for rest and food. Then about three in the morning the phone
rang in the room and it was Lindsay saying to come over to the Apple if we
weren’t too tired. Well, we were, but we
didn’t tell him that. His surprise had
to be something for him to call us over in the middle of the night. Lindsay was looking out for us when we got
there about 4am. He seemed happy to see
us again. And our curiosity was driving
us crazy!

Lindsay wanted some pictures together, so we took a few in
the lobby, doing various poses. Then
Lindsay told us the surprise was a complete tour of the Apple building. I must say without sounding too boastful,
that I don’t know many fans who ever had the opportunity to see “the inner
sanctum.”

So after the pictures, we headed to the door to the right,
it was a waiting room of sorts with a stereo and magazines and a large picture
of the Beatles. By the way, the lobby
had a couch, a desk for the receptionist and several different covers of Beatle
albums framed on the walls. The place
was mainly white and green (like the apple).
The place got quite untidy as we left the reception area and went up the
stairs. Believe it or not, there were
gold framed LPs and 45’s just sitting on the floor or leaning here or
there. It’s funny now, years later, as I
see the prices of things at auctions and conventions. I could see how many items got into so many
different people’s hands.

So up the
stairs and into the private offices.
First Ringo’s. Lindsay told us he
was involved in a contemporary furniture company. There was a large egg-shaped chair that was
hollowed out and you could sit in it and listen to music playing in the
built-in speakers. For its time, it was
strange. Then Paul’s office—there was a
beautiful picture of him and John over the back wall, one I’d never seen
before. On the wall over the fireplace
was a basic white wooden chair, sawn in half and just hung up there! As we walked by his desk, I noticed a stack
of 45s and I picked one up. Lindsay said
it was Paul’s new record due out that week.
It was “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” and these were promo
copies. He gave us each one.

From there we went into a small room which turned out to be
a private screening room, with lush leather seats, but also pretty messy. The projection room was right up from
there. This was probably my favorite, if
there was any room I wish I could go back and spend some time in. there was a wall 30 feet long and ten feet
high loaded with cans of 16mm film. The
tape on the outside listed the contents: “J & P in India” “Studio Feb ‘66”,
“Takes 4/5/6/7 MMT” etc. I was going
crazy! Just imagine these films exist
somewhere. If only the Beatles fans of
the world could enjoy them. What good
are they sitting in cans?

Back downstairs we went into a little kitchen and Lindsay
made some tea for us. Then he said, ‘let
me give you some souvenirs before you go.’
He went into some filing cabinets and took out four copies of each item
for us. Promo pics of each of the
Beatles, Badfinger, Mary Hopkin, and a beautiful magazine with pictures,
telling of the opening of Apple recording studios, and some 45’s. He also gave us a set of Apple matches sealed
in plastic with the Apple logo and some Happy Christmas stickers.

After tea, we went downstairs to the new studios where the
Beatles were to record, but obviously never did (as a group). First we sat at the control board and with
the touch of a button the lights came on very gradually in the studio. Everything was brand new and beautiful. The piano was just magnificent. We all got to play a couple of notes on it.

By now we had been there about two hours and should have been
tired, but it was one of those natural highs that was not going to stop. Lindsay invited us over to his home for
dinner the next night, but we couldn’t because the tour we were on was moving
on. That was the last time I saw
Lindsay, and England for that matter. I’m
just sorry I couldn’t stay in touch with him over the years. Even though I’m sure he won’t get this
message, I just want to say a million thank yous for one of the most memorable
times in my life.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Featured Post

I was fortunately to receive the Beatles Yellow Submarine Lego set over the past weekend and I am excited to tell you about it in tonig...

Welcome Beatle fans!

This blog is to highlight photos and stories of people who have met the Beatles in person. And while fan taken photos are my favorite, I also like to include vintage fan photos and other photos that show the Beatles meeting fans.

The idea behind this blog is to follow in the footsteps of the great Beatle fanzines of the 1970's & 1980's such as The Write Thing, The Harrison Alliance, With a Little Help from my Friends, Paperback Writer, etc etc. Photos and article from those publications and others are reproduced here to preserve the history of the fans who met one or more Beatle in person.

If you have ever met one of the Beatles and have a story or pictures to share, please contact me, Sara, at Starshyne9@yahoo.com.

I have never met the Beatles (besides in my dreams) but love fan photos. These photos are from my collection, which spans 17 years of online photo collecting and scanning books. I do not claim any copyright of these photos or stories. Some of them are sent to me and published with permission. Others are scanned from magazines, books and found in various places online. I do not watermark photos that I place on this blog because I do not own any of the photos. These photos are on this blog in an attempt to preserve the history of the Beatles. If you own the rights to a photo and wish to have it removed from this blog, please contact me.